Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee for US Secretary of Health and Human Services, appeared to be in conflict with his former self during the first round of his Senate confirmation hearings on Wednesday.
Kennedy was grilled by Senate Finance Committee members about his previous opinions and comments on subjects ranging from school shootings to vaccines to abortion.
Kennedy, appearing astonished at times, consistently downplayed and denied controversial things he has said previously in podcasts, conferences or TV interviews, even though the senators quoted him directly.
Legislators repeatedly asked Kennedy to reconcile his prior health positions with his potential HHS responsibilities. Each time, he said his remarks were being mischaracterised or that he’d never made such statements.
Here are six examples:
1. Kennedy’s rebuttal of claims that he is ‘ antivaccine ‘ ignores years of activism
Describing Kennedy’s appearance on a 2023 podcast, Senator Ron Wyden said Kennedy had questioned vaccine safety and had said: “No vaccine is safe and effective”.
In a conversation with podcast host Lex Fridman, Fridman asked Kennedy to name “any vaccines you think are good.” Kennedy claimed that was a “fragment of” that conversation. Kenneth said that Fridman interrupted him so that he could make a more nuanced point.
In that interview, Kennedy said: “I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing. There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective”.
Kennedy during the hearing also said he’s not anti-vaccines, rather, “pro-safety”.
Despite numerous studies that disprove this claim, he has long argued that vaccines can cause autism. Kennedy has also said, falsely, that childhood vaccines aren’t safety-tested.
In 2018, Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, a legal advocacy group that sought stories about children “injured” by environmental toxins and vaccines. Among other issues, that organization has supported and filed lawsuits challenging vaccination regulations.
2. Kennedy’s shifting abortion stance
Senators claimed that Kennedy’s position on abortion had changed.
You visited New Hampshire a year and a half ago and discussed how the government should not restrict women’s access to their own bodies. That’s her choice”, Senator Bernie Sanders said. When Trump asked you to become HHS secretary, you never saw a major politician react to that question as quickly as you did.
Kennedy replied: “I believe, and I’ve always believed, that every abortion is a tragedy”.
Kennedy’s abortion stance has shifted over the years.
Kennedy described himself as “pro choice” in a June 2023 interview with WMUR in New Hampshire, saying that “the worst solution is when the government is involved in decisions that should belong to a woman.”
After 15 or 21 weeks of pregnancy, Kennedy stated in another interview that he would support a federal abortion ban. He , walked back , the statement hours later because he said he “misunderstood” the question.
In May 2024, he again provided contradictory responses. Former ESPN host Sage Steele, a podcaster and former host of ESPN, said Kennedy opposes any government restrictions on abortion, “even if it’s full.” Hours later, Kennedy walked that statement back, too, writing on X that “abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks, and restricted thereafter”.
Kennedy has said he supports abortion up until the foetal viability stage, which is typically at about 24 weeks of pregnancy, and that his position changed as a result of his “willingness to listen” since May 2024.
During his hearing, Kennedy said states should control abortion, mirroring Trump’s view.
3. The CDC’s vaccine program was compared to Nazi concentration camps, according to Kennedy.
Senator Raphael Warnock claimed that Kennedy had previously compared the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Nazi concentration camps.
Do you back up those previous statements that you made, or do you change them? Warnock asked.
Kennedy said, “Senator, I don’t believe that I ever compared the CDC to Nazi death camps”.
“I never said it”, Kennedy added.
During a 2013 autism conference, Kennedy compared the CDC’s childhood vaccine programme to the Holocaust. He was asked why the CDC wasn’t acknowledging autism as an epidemic. What happened to these kids in these Nazi concentration camps, Kennedy said, referring to the rising number of children with autism. I can’t explain why someone would act in such a manner. I can’t tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust”.
Kennedy also made a comparison between the CDC and Catholic Church sexual abusers, according to Warnock.
Kennedy argued at a conference that the CDC hid risks in its vaccination programs for children and compared this to the Catholic Church’s cover-up of child sexual abuse.
“The institution, CDC and the vaccine programme, is more important than the children that it’s supposed to protect”, Kennedy said, according to NBC News reporting. People were able to persuade themselves that the institution, the church, was more important than these young boys and girls who were being raped, which is the same reason we had a pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church.
4. Kennedy said ‘ tremendous circumstantial evidence ‘ linked school shootings to antidepressants
Senator Tina Smith, for Minnesota, said Kennedy had repeatedly “blamed school shootings on antidepressants” and asked whether he still believed that.
Kennedy replied: “I don’t think anybody can answer that question, and I didn’t answer that question”, arguing that his past remarks were mischaracterised. He claimed that “any potential link between antidepressants and school shootings should be investigated, along with other potential culprits.”
That’s not how he phrased it in a 2023 , livestream , with X owner Elon Musk.
According to Kennedy, there is “extraordinary circumstantial evidence” that medications are a factor in school shootings. He cited selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of antidepressants, and benzodiazepines, medicines often used to treat anxiety. He claimed there were “no good studies” on the role of psychiatric drugs in school shootings, and that it ought to have been done “years ago.”
According to psychiatry experts, there isn’t a link between shootings and antidepressants. About 13 percent of the adult population uses antidepressants, and experts say if there were a link, they would expect higher rates of violence. Most attackers didn’t use psychiatric medications, which have an antiviolence effect, according to research on US school shootings.
5. According to Kennedy, a pesticide in children’s water supply causes “sexual dysphoria.”
Senator Michael Bennet, Colorado, asked Kennedy: “Did you say that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender”?
Kennedy replied, “No, I never said that”.
Kennedy did not use those exact words in a 2023 podcast interview, but he did say: “I think a lot of the problems we see in kids, and particularly boys, it’s probably under-appreciated how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing”.
“Sexual dysphoria” is not a medical term. This distressing state is common in transgender people because it can occur when a person’s gender identity does not match their sex.
In a 2023 statement, Kennedy stated that a study found that some male frogs developed female sex organs and were unable to conceive after being exposed to the herbicide atrazine in water.
In the US, atrazine is a frequently used herbicide. The Environmental Protection Agency evaluates potential risks to both the environment and human health by determining how much water is permitted in drinking water.
No scientific research on humans has demonstrated that gender dysphoria can be caused by atrazine exposure because there are significant biological differences between people and frogs. Atrazine has been linked, in some studies, to birth defects and other reproductive health problems.
6. Kennedy falsely claimed that “Caucasians and Black people” were the targets of COVID-19.
Bennet also questioned Kennedy about how he once described COVID-19 as a “genetically engineered bioweapon that spares Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.” The descendants of Jewish people who lived in central or eastern Europe are the Ashkenazi Jews. Kennedy said he “didn’t say it was deliberately targeted”.
While talking about bioweapons at a July 2023 dinner in New York City, Kennedy said: “There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people are the ones who are most resistant.
This assertion was flagged as false by PolitiFact. There is no evidence that COVID-19 was a purpose-built ethnic bioweapon intended to protect or target particular races or ethnicities, despite the ongoing debate over its origins.
Source: Aljazeera
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